Lake Water Treatment Using Green Wall System: Effects of Filter Media Ratio and Lake Water Flow Rate on Treatment Perfor

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ORIGINAL PAPER

Lake Water Treatment Using Green Wall System: Effects of Filter Media Ratio and Lake Water Flow Rate on Treatment Performance Guan Xuan Chua 1 & Kai Siang Oh 1 & Li Wan Yoon 1 & Lee Hong Tee 1 Received: 5 March 2020 / Revised: 5 June 2020 / Accepted: 25 June 2020 # Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

Abstract Lake water pollution has become a growing concern over the years. Therefore, alternative water treatment solutions are needed to address this issue. Green wall is considered as a potential alternative to treat lake water. However, the treatment performance of filtering media in removing lake water pollutants is unknown. Previous studies suggested that coir and perlite could be the potential filter media for the green wall system. Hence, this research studied the pollutant removal efficiency of various ratios of combined media. Thereafter, the treatment performance was evaluated with different lake water flow rate. The result showed that the 3:1 coir-to-perlite combined media ratio achieved the highest chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solid (TSS) and turbidity removal with constant hydraulic load. This suggested that coir played an important role in governing both physicochemical and biological processes due to the impact of retention time on the removal. It was found that the removal of pollutants was insignificant when the lake water flow rate is higher and lower than 28 L/h. This study also indicated that the lake water flowrate of 28 L/h managed to achieve consistent removal in COD, turbidity, TSS and TN with 53%, 54%, 41% and 52% removal, respectively. Keywords Green wall . Coir . Perlite . Lake water . Water treatment . Flow rate

Introduction In recent years, multiple studies had shown that human activities such as agriculture, industrialisation, sewage disposal and illegal mining resulted in the lake water quality deterioration [1, 2]. The effluent of these activities carries contaminants that consists of heavy metals, phosphorus and nitrogen [3]. Nitrogen and phosphorus content are important nutrients for the aquatic plants in freshwater. However, excess amount of these nutrients can cause problems like oxygen depletion, nutrient enrichment and diseases to the existing aquatic system. Therefore, the amount of these pollutant in the lake water quality must be controlled. To date, many water treatment technologies have been developed to reduce water pollution. Biofiltration system is identified as one of the cheapest,

* Kai Siang Oh [email protected] 1

Chemical Engineering Discipline, School of Engineering, Taylor’s University, Taylor’s Lakeside Campus, No. 1 Jalan Taylor’s, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor DE, Malaysia

practical, low cost and environmentally friendly solution for wastewater treatment. Among the biofilters, constructed wetlands are commonly used to treat various kinds of wastewater sources due to its capability in removing organic pollutants and suspended solid if well-maintained [4, 5]. Nowadays, the wetland technologies are available even in the